Hero Rising Read online

  “God, I missed you,” I whispered in her ear.

  “I missed you, too,” she said with a smile. She seemed to want to say something more, but stopped herself.

  I pulled away from her though. She knew my routine. Whenever I came home, whether from a simple errand on the island or from the States, the first thing I did was check on the boys.

  “Go ahead,” Lena said. “They’re in bed, but I know you have to see them.” There was no doubt something was weighing heavily on her mind. I knew in my heart that she knew what I had been up to, back in the States.

  I climbed the stairs and softly opened the door to their room. Jason and Joshua were both sleeping soundly. They looked so precious. I sat with each of them for a minute, studying their faces. Then I kissed each of them on the forehead and headed back down to the living room.

  Lena had a knowing look on her face, that look that told me she knew I had been up to something.

  “So, by the look on your face, I guess you know about my little adventure in Southern California.” I always laid my cards on the table where Lena was concerned.

  “Josiah, everyone knows. The whole world knows!”

  “Yeah, Tommy and I went on the Internet afterwards. We saw all the clips.”

  “There are some new clips out showing how the whole thing was faked by the firefighter,” Lena said.

  “Really?” I laughed because the firefighters weren’t exactly pleased that I was saving people and interfering with their work. “But what are you going to do when you have a guy who can fly…saving people from being burned alive? The Tandra mind just didn’t want to believe what they were seeing.”

  “Oh, but most people really believe in you. You’re giving the world a little hope, Josiah. It is actually blowing my mind what you did.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t meant to make such a huge impression. I thought it might, but nothing like this. It was one thing for Tandra to be impressed. It was quite another that they believed that what they were seeing was for real. The whole world thought of me as a superhero now. Apparently, including my wife.

  “You’re trending all over the Internet. They are already calling the clip of the year.” Then Lena sighed. “I knew this was going to happen.”

  “Are you upset about it?” I asked her, even though there was nothing I could do about it now. There was no going back.

  “I suppose not.”

  I touched her cheek gently and drew my fingers down her neck. Lena understood me better than anyone.

  “I didn’t plan it, you know that.”

  “I know you didn’t. Of course you had to help those people. You don’t have it in you to ignore a situation like that.”

  “What does everyone on Helena think?” I asked. Not that their opinion mattered, but I was just curious.

  “That you’re a hero, of course.” Lena took my hand in hers and kissed it. She raised her eyes to mine. “My hero, too.”

  I was about to lean back into the couch when Lena rose and tugged my hand. “Oh, no you don’t, Mr. Superhero. I’ve got other plans for you than relaxing.”

  “Oh? And what might those plans be?” I asked.

  “Come to bed and you’ll find out.”

  I let Lena lead me by the hand to our bedroom.

  Chapter Six

  That night, I laid in my bed next to a sleeping Lena and wondered how many people fell asleep in their very own castle? I didn’t mean some cheesy rip-off castle like some billionaire putting a giant castle on his 400-acre property. I meant a sixteenth-century castle originally made for some diplomat who’d never lived in it full time.

  Lena was concerned the castle was haunted, and by this point in my journey, the spiritual realm didn’t exactly worry me. Did I believe in the spiritual realm? You bet I did. My sister, Maya—who’d passed on years before—had been there with me on that beach when Krull was doing the unthinkable to my flesh. I just realized the spirit world wasn’t clearly defined. It was if the more we knew about the spiritual realm, the less we understood it.

  I decided to take a cue from the superhero business and try to figure out exactly how I was going to go about it.

  This wasn’t the first time I had been faced with a scenario that was extremely dangerous. I’d led a group of misfits and saved the future of the Mani people from crumbling from within. I had often thought about the relevance of what had been accomplished.

  As far as we knew, the Mani were the only vampires to survive. Mani were a subculture vampire race that lived on the outskirts of Tandra society. A couple of years ago, we had had an all-out war Mani vs. Mani, and my side had prevailed.

  My good friend, Helen—who had sacrificed her life in our fight against Krull—was the donor of the two islands. She signed over both islands to me so our people could at least try to have a peaceful existence without interference from the Tandra. There weren’t many habitable places on Earth that were unoccupied, so the two islands from Helen was like a gift that fell from the sky. I recently gave one of the islands to a good friend of mine and his dear wife. It was more of a gift for their wedding.

  Good friend? Okay, that was pushing it. Atticai and I didn’t exactly get together on Monday night to watch Monday Night Football. Nor did we see eye to eye on many issues. There was possibly lingering fallout from Atticai mistakenly believing that he was meant to become the Chosen One, until I came on the scene and then it became clear that he was not that guy. But now, we both had our islands standing next to each other. And we lived in peace.

  My island was called Helena. I’d named it after the woman who gave me the island. To me, calling the island Helena was more than that. I named it after her for everything she stood for, too. Helen had been an amazing woman, and at times, I felt her spirit around me. Sometimes it was in a breeze, or the laughter of my two sons. But I was aware that she watched over us from the spirit world.

  I had led a fight that consisted of 700 Mani men and women against a madman, Krull, who had recruited 2,500 men to his side. After fierce battles, we had prevailed. Now all the Mani who wanted to live a more peaceful life—and enjoy my protection—could live on either island. As far as I knew, we were the only modern-day colonists on Earth.

  But that battle was not without loss and tragedy. We lost good Mani in the fight against Krull. Those enemies who survived the great battle were granted immunity and allowed to live among us in peace. So far, that outreach of mine had served to be a good move, rather than to invite further struggles for power. Instead, I had invited them to settle here. And respect my authority. So far, they had.

  Regardless of my strength and will, we would have never won if it wasn’t for Sion’s amazing strategic plotting. Sion and I had an interesting friendship. In Earth years, he was older than I was—I figured he was close to fifty years old. However, his body seemed fifteen years younger.

  A little over thirty years ago, he’d turned into a vampire. In recent years, he had then proven to be as loyal to me as my best friend, Tommy. But in different ways.

  Very soon, our boys—Lena’s and mine—would be turning three years old. We would have an island-size party for them. Everyone was invited and I was hoping Atticai and Donya would make it, too.

  Tommy had mentioned he might have something to do that weekend. To be honest, it bothered me that he was going to miss his godsons’ third birthday party. But he had a date.

  Back in the day, Tommy had gotten really close to another werewolf named Yomaida. They had an on-and-off again relationship that I thought drove him insane at times. Tommy had never had much luck with women, except for my sister and she had died. I think it was his approach that was his undoing.

  Tommy attracted women who liked the bad boy in him, and therefore, he was expected to keep up that persona, not that it was hard for him to do so, but it did stop his relationships from growing past a certain point.

  Usually, those weren’t the type of women who made solid relationships with Tommy anyway. However,
Yomaida was as quality as a woman got, but something about her didn’t click with him in my opinion. Maybe I worried that she accepted Tommy at face value, instead of encouraging him to reach his full potential, as Lena did with me. At times, I just felt he needed to be patient and find the Lena in his life, someone with whom he would grow into his full potential.

  As much as I loved Tommy—which was closer than brothers—I felt like he never aspired to become anything better than he was. Coaching MMA was great, but other than that job and watching sports and hanging out with me to re-hash old movies we liked, he didn’t have any…ambition. Whenever I spoke to him about finding a different love match, he just said that nobody would ever compare to Maya. And he left it at that—and what could I say to that? Nothing.

  Every so often, Tommy and I communicated telepathically. It was like having the world’s greatest walkie-talkies that only you and your friend could get on the frequency. Lena didn’t like it when we did that. She said it made things “too private.” And she slightly insinuated that “grown men shouldn’t have such secrets.” I thought she was a tiny bit jealous, but man friends are important to other men, even married ones with children.

  Tommy joked that Lena resembled and sounded more and more like Scarlett O’Hara as her hair grew and her melodrama increased. Nonetheless, she was my wife and the mother of my children—I loved her more than life itself.

  I could smell Lena’s beautiful hair as I came awake, and reached to pull her closer to me. She turned towards me and settled her head against my chest. Sometimes, I still couldn’t believe what my life had become. I lay there, thinking of all that had come about. Although Lena and I had been officially married for about almost two years, it seemed like only yesterday when we had been married by Atticai. At the same time, it felt as though we’d been together for an eternity.

  I smiled. I had the most beautiful woman in the universe for a wife, and incredible twin sons. I lived on an island in a sixteenth century castle. I had money in the bank. Life was good. Why was I so bored and itching to mix it up by becoming a superhero to the Tandra? I think it was who I was at a core level: a rescuer, a role model, a caretaker.

  Lena stirred and looked up at me.

  “Good morning, beautiful,” I whispered.

  “Hey there, superhero,” she said sleepily and snuggled closer, her hand now softly caressing my chest. I’d never known that a woman could continually arouse me as much as Lena did. Her hair, her eyes, those lips…and her perfect body…those curves…

  Thoughts of my mundane life faded as my mind became focused on one thing and one thing only: Lena’s body. Our bodies together, becoming one. We lost ourselves in each other and lost track of the time, for a good hour, I later realized.

  Afterward, we put our clothes back on and we almost fell back to sleep, but the boys came tumbling into our giant bedroom.

  “Wake up!” Joshua said, poking his little knuckle into my face.

  “Yeah, wake up, Mommy, Daddy. Beach!” Jason asked. They had dressed themselves in their swimming trunks, and Jason playfully waved around a small beach shovel. It must have been weird to our children that their parents only went outside when it was dark. They couldn’t quite grasp that their mother and I were unable to go to the beach during the day.

  Lena and I looked at each other. “These boys never quit,” she said to me. I pulled Jason up to me and Lena grabbed Joshua and hugged and kissed him. “Maybe we can go to the beach later,” she said. “But I’m starving! Anyone else hungry?”

  We couldn’t exactly take our kids to the beach till night time anyway. Once the sun went down, we owned the beach, but as long as the sun was out, we had no alternative but to stay out of the deadly rays.

  “After that workout?” I joked, and stroked her hair.

  She smiled the smile of a well-satisfied woman. “I could eat a horse!”

  “Pancakes!” Joshua and Jason said in unison. As twins, they did a lot of things the same way at the same time.

  “Okay,” Lena said happily. “Mommy will make you pancakes. You boys go downstairs and let Mommy and Daddy get dressed. Also, I want to speak to your father privately.”

  “Uh-oh, Daddy is in trouble.” Joshua laughed.

  “Again?” said Jason.

  Then the twins giggled and raced out of the room. I could hear them scampering down the stone staircase. I sighed. “Another day in the life…”

  Lena looked at me, a little concern showing on her face. “So, what’s the plan?”

  “There is no plan,” I said, not too convincingly.

  “Don’t tell me there is no plan when I know you’ve been obsessing on it all night. Did you sleep?”

  “I got a couple of hours.” I looked into Lena’s eyes. Wasn’t I just going over in my mind what a wonderful life I had? I had everything a man could want, and more. Because I was more than just a man. I could be a vampire or a werewolf any time I wanted. Lena and I were still mortal—we aged at half the rate of the human race. So, if I had a plan…I was extremely conflicted. “I’m just…Lena, do you ever miss the old days?” I asked.

  “The old days?”

  “Like five years ago? Those old days?” I said.

  “Yeah, I remember them,” Lena answered. “Those memories are still pretty fresh. Some of them were pretty scary, too.”

  “I had a profession.”

  “A profession?”

  “Yes, my job was fighting for your love. It was fighting to save you and to keep my friendship with Tommy intact. Then my goal was fighting for the Mani.”

  “You noticed you used the words ‘fighting’ in each sentence. You see, Josiah, that is the part I don’t miss. Not one bit. The fighting, the wars, the saving each other’s lives, the not knowing how things would turn out? The constant worrying of whether you would live or die?”

  She got out of bed and started to dress for the day. I sensed conflict in the air, with our old relationship demons rising up to spew from her lips. “Or, what about how I felt last night when your little savior bit hit the Internet and was seen all around the world. Did you ask me how I felt then?”

  I knew this was a loaded question, so I said as heartfelt as I could. “I would hope you felt some sense of pride.”

  “Pride? Pride! Returning to all the nonsense we left behind? Again, Josiah? The Mani were delivered from all the violence. You came. You fought. You conquered. Finally, we settled down in peace and I started to feel a sense of security and bliss, especially after the boys came. Now you want to stir up things again and start a whole new venture? Or should I say, adventure? Is this because you are bored or because you have to always have danger in your life? You are a husband and a dad, so grow up and be responsible for us, not saving for the entire world!”

  Lena was making good points, but she needed to hear my heart. She needed to know that this calling is almost as great as my Mani calling. But this time, I had a say about it, though she was escalating the situation into a big melodrama. I decided to try to de-escalate what would grow into a big fight if I wasn’t careful. So, I downgraded the superhero aspect into something that was a minor activity. I said, “It’s different this time. It’s not what I have to do. It is what I want to do.”

  “Like a hobby?” she asked and I dismissed the edge of sarcasm in her voice.

  “That’s it!” I said, seizing on her word. “That is exactly what it is. A hobby!”

  “By calling it a hobby, doesn’t that demean it a little bit what you’re saying that you’re trying to do?” Oh, she was too smart, as always.

  “Look,” I said. “Then I’ll call it…” I stopped myself from continuing.

  “Call it what?” Lena asked.

  “I’ll call it whatever makes it easier for you to allow me to take on this challenge. I don’t want a conflict with you, so, maybe we shouldn’t label it and thereby, limit where I take it. Likewise, I don’t want it to become this huge thing between us. It’s not as important as you.”

  I
think I threw Lena off. She didn’t realize how much I needed this. For me. For my own wellbeing. “Other men have a job they go to every day. Hell, even Tommy has a job. A nice, safe coaching job.”

  “You want me to coach Mani to fight MMA?”

  “No, I’m just trying to lend perspective about people who have to work for a living and don’t have all of this extra time on their hands to think up crazy stuff to do.”

  “Hey,” I said. “It’s not crazy. It’s a great idea.”

  “So, what is it, exactly? Is being a superhero a hobby or is it a job?”

  “Maybe it’s nothing we should define in finite terms. Maybe it doesn’t need to be put in a box of rules and definitions.”

  “Josiah…” Her voice trailed off in a sense of hurt. I know she felt left out when I went out on my own and left her at home with the boys. It was true, she didn’t get out much, but she never complained about it these days. She seemed happy to be just a mom, just a wife. I hoped that was enough for her, that I wasn’t marginalizing her importance.

  I stared at Lena and I thought about what I was truly asking for—her approval—and how much I did really want it so I could not feel so guilty about going off on superhero adventures.

  I said, “Let’s table the superhero thing for a moment. Let’s talk about you. Do you need to get out more? Build some friendships with other women?”

  “That’s not what this is about and you know it, so don’t try to make it about me. It’s all about you, Josiah.”

  “Okay,” I said quietly. “Just please know that I can’t escape the fact that helping someone in need is the greatest gift you can give to that person in need, and to yourself. It makes me feel so good to make a difference in people’s lives.”

  “You make a difference here, Josiah. When you’re here. I love it when you’re here. Especially when you want to be here.”

  “I see.” Now it was about me being away a lot. I was now dressing for the day. “Who knows what those boys are up to downstairs,” I said lightly, trying like hell to table the discussion because the balance of power was about to sway her way—I recognized it was pointless to continue the discussion right now. However, Lena pressed on.